I’ve been really busy with the Olympics and television watching.
Some years ago, after playing Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla I got into some Viking shows. First it was The Last Kingdom, then Vikings, then Vikings: Valhalla. They really like their Valhalla.
It was fun, and violent, and old timey. It was entertaining, sure. But it also sent me down various rabbit holes in an attempt to learn fact from fiction. A lot of these shows have characters that existed or mythologized versions of people who may or may not have existed. Watching this latest season of Vikings: Valhalla something hit me like a bucket of ice water.
Christians didn’t erase ancient Viking culture and history, but not for lack of trying; that was the bucket. The ice water was the realization that the reason I don’t see heroic television shows or movies about, say the Aztec or Mayan cultures, is because Christian efforts to erase cultures sometimes succeed. So little of the histories and cultures of the indigenous tribes ex…
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